Recent Professional Presentations

LAC presents twice at 2007 APWA National in San Antonio, TX

This presentation will describe the procedure of defining and organizing preventative maintenance (PMs) programs and automating them with a Management System. The procedure is directed to both fixed and movable estuary bridges in two different Counties in two different states. These bridges are common in their purpose, but not in design. The PMs for 144 bridges must be defined for one county division while the other County focus is on four large movable bridges. Establishment of PMs is the issue for effective management of bridges. Automating the PM cycle will allow bridge maintenance crews, bridge tenders, and mechanics to issue and track work orders and determine maintenance trends. Further, this allows minor repairs and low cost effort of preventive maintenance such as greasing and dirt removal instead of more expensive rehabilitation. This preventative strategy along with automation will eliminate duplicate work and minimize information time lags between personnel. Both Counties outline the benefits of establishing a preventative maintenance operations based on both time and usage. In addition another advantage outlined is that both of the agencies have long term employees with intimate knowledge of the bridges that will soon be retiring. Many of these staff retains specific knowledge of preventative strategies to the bridges that lacks any documentation and/ or is difficult to discern from existing specifications and plans. By documenting the PMs future personnel are be able to benefit from the institutional knowledge.

Keeping Your Pipes Clean

This presentation focuses on integrating GIS technology with a Sanitation District management system to develop routine schedules for drain cleaning that are dynamically changed based on real time information. Logic was developed that determined the cleaning cycles for drain segments based on activity history with debris severity and CCTV condition ratings. These routines will help reduce travel and setup times for crews by grouping segments geographically and adopting a preventive, rather than reactive, approach to sewer maintenance. The maintenance history for a 435-mile wastewater collection system was analyzed over 25 year time period. A plan was developed to place each line on a fixed cleaning frequency ranging from 3 to 36 months. These initial frequencies were then entered into a database and a 5-year work plan was created showing each segment and its monthly cleaning cycle. The system was then programmed to analyze work history and optimize routines automatically. Areas to clean were grouped geographically using the developed GIS maps. Various reports were also created for monthly work loads, overdue segments, and an exception report indicating segments that may benefit from a modified frequency. The result has been dramatic with considerable savings. The presentation will outline lessons learned and opportunities for further improvement.